A Newbie's Way Of Making A Yo Yo Better (this is for fun)

General Yo-Yo
1

Do not take this seriously, This is just for fun. :slight_smile:

 Alright so here I am listening to (not watching) the videos on this forum dealing with the yo yo. I went into the yo yo maintenance section because once I get a yo yo, I want to know how to take care of it. It seems that if you want the yo yo to spin or sleep you would use a thin lube and a thicker lube for a slower yo yo. They said to use lyres made for the yo yo.....this sounds like a sales pitch to me. LOL Are the yo yo lubes petroleum, synthetic, silicone? I have some ideas for a yo yo lube of my own:

Synthetic Automatic Transmission fluid. It is about a 5W (weight) old, so very thin
Synthetic ATF with STP Oil Treatment added: this will add zinc and make the lube thicker
Lucas Oil Stabilizer. Very thick yet very slick, so your bearings ride on a cushon of lube
Why not Lucas gun oil? If it can handle an AK-47 it can handle a yo yo
Amsoil 0W-20 motor oil. If it can protect a Bugatti Bayron, lubing a yo yo is not a problem.
75W-140 synthetic gear lub for a slower responding yo yo
How about the “ole’ stand by” 3-in-1 oil. It is then and is a good “go to” all purpose lube
coat your axle and string in teflon

 Now it was mentioned in one of the videos to be careful what you use to clean your ball bearings in the yo yo because you cleaner such as mineral spirits could melt or damage your plastic yo yo. There is a simple solution to this, remove the bearing from the yo yo. No melted plastics now. :) So what do you to to a fixed wood axle yo yo to make it sleep longer? You sand that axle with 3000 grit sandpaper then you soak it in STP to get it impregnated with zinc and phosphorous. Wipe off the access and put it all back together. 
 The same deal applies to the yo yo string. Cotton will soak up any lube you wanna use, so use the STP/ATF mix....It will make you string very slick and also will add a mice bright red sheen to it thus making it easier to see. 
 While we are on the subject of the yo yo, why just stop with a $150 aluminum yo yo? Why not buy or make one from carbon fiber? Very light and very strong. Come on folks, time to start thinking outside the box. Why does a yo yo have to be round? Wait a sec......scratch that.....a star shaped yo yo would not work....never mind. If you want a counter weight yo yo, why does the weight have to be on the inside? Why not have spinners on a yo yo.....like a bling yo yo version of a 26inch wheel? :) 
 After reading this, would you say that I have way too much time on my hands to think up this stuff? :)
2

Haha that’s good stuff. As for the “spinners”, google “Z-stacks yoyo.” But z-stacks that look like spinners would be cool.

3

You can lube an AK47 with mud too haha. Wait, idea…

I’ll be right back after I take my chief outside to a puddle.

4

Valve oil for brass instruments also works well as a thin lube.

5

A carbon fiber yoyo would be cool, but since it is light, it wouldn’t spin as long. The strength might be good for offstring, though.

6

what if you use steel weght rings on it. hmm i think this is going to go somewhere… :wink:

7

Still wouldn’t be ideal. Its hardness has the downside of making it much more likely that damage would result in cracking it in half, rather than just ding-ing the finish as with a softer metal. Getting it balanced correctly would also be almost impossible if you’re doing a mold as carbon is traditionally done.

I suppose you could mill a solid block of carbon fiber, and this is done for some products…but you’re talking about a $5-6k yoyo at this point.

8

double wat?

9

your right i guess. no one would pay that much for a possibly medeocre throw.

10

If you spent some time in the Maintenance section you would see that gun oil, fishing reel oil, sewing machine oil, trumpet valve oil and 3-in1 are commonly recommended as bearing lubes.

Square yoyos have been made, hexagons too (have a look at B!ST’s stuff).

Carbon fibre yoyos have also been made - but it’s hard to get it consistent and more of a pain than it’s worth.

As for thinking outside the box - people try, but modern yoyos are the way they are because this is as good as yoyos are going to get with the technology we have today.

11

What would be a typical application of this approach? The whole purpose of composite layups is the strength resin/fiber combination. If you have a block of it, which would require many layers of carbon fabric, you compromise the integrity of the carbon fibers when you machine it. You end up with a block of resin with a lot of cut up stuff in it, much like the old chop gun fiberglass products - a lot of weight and no appreciable strength.

12

Here’s a pair of $5k Oakleys, milled from a solid block 40 layers thick.

but there are no “typical” applications I can think of. This is an absurd process that costs far more than any practical use would ever justify. At this point you might as well be doing carbon ceramic, like they do for high end and industrial brake rotors. I would like to think that Oakley and any other company utilizing the milled carbon technique have figured out a way through specific tooling and machining to retain the integrity of the block once it has been milled, but I would assume this is proprietary information.